Rigney urges Ballinamere players to embrace county final challenge

Kevin Egan

For a club that had a plethora of young talent and underage success, but little or no meaningful experience of what it takes to make an impact in senior championship hurling, it’s easy to see why Ballinamere picked up the phone to Niall Rigney.

The former Laois hurler came from a dual club (Portlaoise) and had managed in the senior championship in Kilkenny, Tipperary and Limerick, as well as looking after his home club and county, enjoying a lot of success along the way.

However, it wasn’t as simple as saying ‘yes’ straight away, and neither was it the case that Rigney immediately believed that Ballinamere would take him to another county final.

Speaking to members of the local press last week, Rigney told of how a few emigrants from Kilkenny played a key role in the story.

“Michael (Duignan) just called me a couple of years back; the boys had been beaten by Birr in the championship quarter-final heavily enough. He just went through the quality that he felt was here and the profile, and he just put it to me, ‘Would I be interested in doing something like this?’

“At the time I was managing Castlecomer (Erin’s Own), I sent a questionnaire type thing as to where Castlecomer were going and what they were doing.

“I just felt too many players were travelling the following year. I actually wanted to stay with them because they were a really good group of lads as well. But I just said if you're going to compete to win championships to get up there, you need everybody, especially if you are a middle of the road team, which they were. So I just said, I might as well have a go at it and here.”

And he did – but his own description of the initial impression he got from the mid-Offaly club was “not great”.

“I just felt there was a lack of ambition” he explained. “I just had to sit groups down, maybe in different pods, and ask them what they wanted, where was their ambition.

“I questioned them on it, I just put it to them, where do you want to go? I mean, if you're interested in making the next step, this is what’s required, and if you're not willing to make that, well, why am I here now?

“I had the experience of working with teams winning championships in the past, and, you know, and that's what I put to them and in fairness to them, they really responded brilliantly. Both the club and the players really bought into what I was trying to bring to them.”

The club’s evolution continued in 2023, and while a semi-final defeat to Shinrone was a bitter disappointment at the time, Rigney is in no doubt that as a learning experience, that game was invaluable.

“That's probably what drove me to come back here this year, if I'm being honest. I felt that we were physically way off in that game,” he said.

“We topped their group and we had a month to the semi-final against Shinrone, but I felt we went into that semi-final not battle-hardened and that was my responsibility. We probably should have trained a little bit more on certain aspects of the game that we did work on this month. But hindsight is a great thing.

“They were further ahead in their development and physicality than us, and they brought it to the to the game. They beat us down physically, I felt, and just when they had us broken physically, they closed us out with hurling and credit to them. That was a really good Shinrone team, you don’t win championships unless you're a good team.”

With a five-week break between their final group game and the county semi-final, the parallels between the 2023 and 2024 campaigns were easy to see.

“The football aspect is a big thing as well. They’re week-on/week-off here with Ballinamere and Durrow and that's difficult enough to keep lads fresh, you can't leave a hurl down for two weeks, that's crucially important. But that's to their credit, they kept themselves in with their touch work and whatever it was,” Rigney said.

“Then we had a really good month going into the Rynagh’s game, and hopefully that game will stand to us because it was a great test of character.”

Asked about the challenge of taking on Kilcormac-Killoughey, he replied: “We respect them for what they are. They’re a good team, but we're not a bad team either. You know, we're in the fight, and I firmly believe we have a good chance. We have seriously good players, and this is the acid test. Isn’t it a great place to be?

“I've been involved in four county finals as a player, I've been involved in another four or five as a manager, so I'm experienced enough to know what it takes, and I'm experienced enough to know what it doesn't take.

“This is brilliant for the lads, and I've told them to absolutely love this and embrace this. It's a great occasion for them, and it's something that they'll always remember, hopefully for the right reasons,” Rigney added.